SINCE THAT DAY

Digital image by S. Auberle

for the longest time after 9/11, I couldn't write at all. Finally, weeks later, these words came.

I want to write about Colin Powell's words--we are Americans, we don't walk around terrified. I want to tell him he's wrong. I want to write about times of war--lying in my mother's womb as the skies of Pearl harbor explode; cradling my infant son in the Vietnam years and now, in yet another generation, how that son's twin sons are trying to be born too soon--into yet another time of hate. I want to write about serenity--cottonwoods on the Fox river; turtles and geese and autumn flowers; but the words won't come. I want to write about courage--a new moon high in the sky this afternoon and beside it, a first trail of returning jets. I want to write about hope-- this lily in the window of a house and the promise it holds of peace, but my fingers remain stilled. I want to write of fear--my train trip three days later--the passengers' certainty that World War III has begun. Two women in the seats behind me shoot tequila as we roll across the country, finally collapsing in each other's arms--the brassy one with crows nest hair sobbing against her friend in zebra slippers who colors in a child's book. I want to write about caring--for the large man across the aisle whose very breaths through the night seem each a victory. I need to write about beauty-- the New Mexico sunset-- long shadows sliding down the mesas, as a quarter moon sets in glowing, golden rose. Finally, I want to write of compassion--the hawk-faced Navajo who boards the train in Gallup, sits beside me and removes his glasses, wiping tears from his eyes. I want to comfort him, but do not intrude on the space we share, that space so carefully maintained in sleep. I wake once and look at him, his face softened in sleep--vulnerable, so very, very vulnerable...

~ Sharon Auberle